IT'S BREXIT

Former
Mayor Boris Johnson of London and his wife, Marina Wheeler,
arriving to vote in the EU referendum at a polling station in
north London on Thursday.REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

It's a Brexit: Britain has chosen to leave the European Union.

Britons voted Thursday on whether the UK should stay in or
leave the 28-nation bloc, with the results counted overnight.

As of 7 a.m. BST (2 a.m. ET) on Friday, the final results showed
that 51.9% voted to leave the EU versus 48.1% that voted for
Britain to stay within the EU. That contained 17,410,742 votes
for Leave and 16,141,241 votes for Remain.

The turnout was 72.2% of the 46,499,537 people who
were entitled to take part in the vote. This is a record number
for a UK poll.

On Wednesday, the bookmaker Ladbrokes gave
the Leave vote just a 24% chance of winning, while William Hill
was similarly unconvinced, pegging a Brexit likelihood at only
25%. This fell in the week before the referendum, when the
likelihood of a Leave vote hovered around the 40% mark.

So what happens next? If you were paying attention to the various
predictions over the past few months, you'll know the forecasts
are pretty dire.
Here are some key points from HSBC:

The
pound — could collapse by as much as
15% against the dollar.

Inflation — HSBC expects a jump in inflation
of 3% to 4.5% by late 2017 as a result of the expected collapse
in the pound.

The economy — Gross-domestic-product growth
will be 1 to 1.5 points lower in 2017 than it would have been
otherwise.

Prime Minister David Cameron — will leave it
to his successor to begin the formal negotiations with the EU
about Britain's exit. Once the negotiations begin, a two-year
countdown to exit begins. All negotiations must be completed
within this window.